The point is, a LiveDVD that doesn't allow you to install is pointless.

The LiveDVD allows you to use the normal installation method, so pretty much everything you've said is wrong. If you're looking for a "baby Gentoo", try Sabayon._________________runit-init howto | Overlay - gtk2 stuff

Gentoo 12: The Mayans definitely got it wrong. The world can’t end now, not when we have possibly the best live DVD ever created. Rating: 10/10

I have to say that I agree with the review in the April issue of Linux Format magazine; the Gentoo LiveDVD is superb. It oozes quality and attention to detail, to the extent that it looks professionally-produced. For the magazine to rate the LiveDVD at 10 out of 10 speaks volumes.

LiveDVDs 12.0 and 12.1 showcase the distribution perfectly and are packed with software for people to try out (or use in anger, as I'm doing right now). I think the Gentoo team who put the LiveDVD together must have worked very hard indeed, and deserve to be congratulated and thanked by the Gentoo user community. The Linux Format review, along with recent posts about Gentoo LiveDVD 12.0 and 12.1 on tuxmachines.org and various blogs, are proof positive that the Gentoo LiveDVD is raising the profile of Gentoo once again after several years of dwindling interest in Gentoo by other Linux users, and I think that is to be applauded._________________Fitzcarraldo's blog

Gentoo 12: The Mayans definitely got it wrong. The world can’t end now, not when we have possibly the best live DVD ever created. Rating: 10/10

I have to say that I agree with the review in the April issue of Linux Format magazine; the Gentoo LiveDVD is superb. It oozes quality and attention to detail, to the extent that it looks professionally-produced. For the magazine to rate the LiveDVD at 10 out of 10 speaks volumes.

LiveDVDs 12.0 and 12.1 showcase the distribution perfectly and are packed with software for people to try out (or use in anger, as I'm doing right now). I think the Gentoo team who put the LiveDVD together must have worked very hard indeed, and deserve to be congratulated and thanked by the Gentoo user community. The Linux Format review, along with recent posts about Gentoo LiveDVD 12.0 and 12.1 on tuxmachines.org and various blogs, are proof positive that the Gentoo LiveDVD is raising the profile of Gentoo once again after several years of dwindling interest in Gentoo by other Linux users, and I think that is to be applauded.

++ this_________________backend.cpp:92:2: warning: #warning TODO - this error message is about as useful as a cooling unit in the arctic

Gentoo 12: The Mayans definitely got it wrong. The world can’t end now, not when we have possibly the best live DVD ever created. Rating: 10/10

I have to say that I agree with the review in the April issue of Linux Format magazine; the Gentoo LiveDVD is superb. It oozes quality and attention to detail, to the extent that it looks professionally-produced. For the magazine to rate the LiveDVD at 10 out of 10 speaks volumes.

LiveDVDs 12.0 and 12.1 showcase the distribution perfectly and are packed with software for people to try out (or use in anger, as I'm doing right now). I think the Gentoo team who put the LiveDVD together must have worked very hard indeed, and deserve to be congratulated and thanked by the Gentoo user community. The Linux Format review, along with recent posts about Gentoo LiveDVD 12.0 and 12.1 on tuxmachines.org and various blogs, are proof positive that the Gentoo LiveDVD is raising the profile of Gentoo once again after several years of dwindling interest in Gentoo by other Linux users, and I think that is to be applauded.

There was no TEAM, the liveDVD is a solo mission with people just testing it out before a release.

From a new linux / gentoo user perspective, it seems fair and logic to include everything you need to install Gentoo with the livedvd. You boot it up, you play with it...live and when your satisfied, you install it. Seems logic to me since the livedvd is a kind of marketing tool to attract users to Gentoo.

Also, even if you guys got a handbook to install Gentoo it would seem good to include a install handbook for the livedvd version if people want to install it._________________I'm a noob, be gentle with me. TEACH ME

From a new linux / gentoo user perspective, it seems fair and logic to include everything you need to install Gentoo with the livedvd.

You do get everything you need: A terminal, internet, and chroot. As pointed out, Gentoo moves too quickly for any install media to actually exist on the DVD. would you want to update a system that is 3 or more months out of date right after your first install?_________________First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

My last Gentoo install was made using the LiveDVD. There is everything in it needed to follow the handbook (although I must admit that after probably more than 20 installs, I don't read everything in the handbook).

You can modify partitions, chroot, download stage3 and snapshot, and you can do all of it with a browser opened on the handbook page.

I guess a simple link on the desktop/menu in the liveDVD called "Installation Guide" poiting to the handbook would be quite enough until someone comes with an automated install script (which would actually work)._________________Arkhelion

You do get everything you need: A terminal, internet, and chroot. As pointed out, Gentoo moves too quickly for any install media to actually exist on the DVD. would you want to update a system that is 3 or more months out of date right after your first install?

nevermind in that case. I didn't know you could but by the way the thread was going it seemed like you can't install it. Well I always used the minimal image of gentoo to install mine so I never took the livedvd version._________________I'm a noob, be gentle with me. TEACH ME

From a new linux / gentoo user perspective, it seems fair and logic to include everything you need to install Gentoo with the livedvd.

This has been tried in the past. The problem is to come up with a good definition of "everything". Even if you include the stage3 tarball, a snapshot and sources for all @system packages most people won't be able to perform a networkless install (which is basically the only reason this has even been tried). And maintaining a "release set" of packages is a huge maintenance burden consuming valuable development resources.
Wireless support on linux install media has traditionally been another minefield due to firmware license issues and incompatible infrastructures over the years.

In advance, sorry for bumping an old thread but I'd really like to give my 2 cents also. I recently started using gentoo again and had much fun the 5 days it took me to get into it (and linux in general) again and getting it to work. I now have a nice second hand 6730b HP laptop with gentoo on it, working perfectly (except for the space bar which is nearing E.O.L. but I'll hack it somehow to get it working properly again).

I recently dumped Micro$oft Window$ 7 on my production machine and because gentoo takes a serious amount of time and love, getting it to work (where after you can enjoy all the nice tools and robust gentoo features) I decided to give Mint a try (and basically, follow one of the ideas mentioned above to use a "plug and play" distro to install gentoo on my production machine).

This takes away the pain of being trapped in a CLI only environment while installing and with some nice tweaks using htop I can watch the latest attack on titan episode while I wait for a bunch of packages to compile or do some PHP/C#.net (don't pull an ugly face) or Jscript/HTML/CSS editing.

I can relate to the frustrations of the OP so here's a story. I got to know gentoo when I was still at school in 2004 and I remember it being pretty high on the distrowatch list. I also viewed it as a challenge! Being new to Linux I figured it better to jump in the deep and learn as much as I could and in the process I got to know Linux very very well to the point where I was asking my teacher questions which I had to explain to him first for him to understand my problem. I was teaching him about Linux. This is what I think of as one of Gentoo's strengths: you have to get involved, certainly in 2004 barely a year after the first official Gentoo Reference Platform *nostalgic feelings and stares out of his office window for a minute*. Gentoo really got me into Linux.

Now for something completely different (but related, you'll see). Upfront: I'm absolutely anything, but an apple fan boy, I detest it's products, not only for their ridicules prices... But I'm also a bit of a small entrepreneur so I can enjoy a profitable business. I recently bought Steve Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson and I'm enjoying it immensely. I think we all know who Steve Wozniak is. If you don't, just let me google that for you: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=steve+wozniak.

Wozniak at the time of early Apple was Steve's best friend and Apple-soulmate. In short: he created immensely important and super cool computer stuff. He's probably heard of Gentoo and if he hasn't, I'm sure it would be love at first sight. But he's a techy, a nerd. He was shy, wanted to be friends with everyone and just couldn't look outside of certain parameters. But that's what you get for being really really good at one specific subject. You can focus really hard on one topic but there's little focus and attention left for other subjects. (What's a GUI installer when you're fluent in the arts of Bash and python! You could probably install Gentoo with one hand while drinking coffee and playing Chopin Ballade 1 on the piano.)

I think the same goes for Gentoo. It's super cool, super efficient and robust but there's no Jobs (relating to the GUI installer ). Wozniak created the Apple I and II, but without Jobs, he would still be handing out printplate designs at his local computer club. Gentoo was at the top of the distrowatch list back at 2004 and now it's at 33 and dropping. You might say "no problem, we're not interested in being the most popular distro out there. We have a philosophy that suites us and things are fine this way. We don't need 'them' ".

There's this point where Steve and his fellow Apple co-workers are at Xerox and lay eyes on one of the first GUI's ever developed. In that day a mouse had two wheels, one for vertical movement of the cursor and one for horizontal movement. Steve wasn't too happy about this crappy handling of a cursor since with this design it was only possible to go either up and down, or left and right but not one of those at the same time. He wanted his engineers to come up with something better and asked one of his employees to get it done. One night a couple of days later he and steve were eating at his favourite restaurant and his employee started rambling about how one of his staff members was complaining that a better mouse design just couldn't be done. The next morning when he arrived at Apple he found out Steve had fired that staff member and replaced him. His replacement went up to him and the first thing he said was "I can do it better! I can design a better mouse!".

This reminds me of one of the posts earlier, that a GUI installer for gentoo "just can't be done". Lucky bastard for not having Steve Jobs as a boss.

It has been done (worked fine when I used it) and it can be done. The Gentoo handbook is just a Bash script in English, people make choices and we have invented buttons and dropdown menu's and lists for a reason (going back to basic, back to Xerox time, it's a proven method for like 40 years now). The only problem is updating the code when something changes. It could be a fine robust base for further development even. You know... What I suspect the real problem is (and developers alike may correct me on this) is that, for a GUI installer to be possible on a source-driven distro, there has to be good communication, good planning and direct response when planning isn't an option. When something changes, a developer needs to know (preferably some time before the actual change) so he can adjust the GUI installers code.

I have been running Mint for a month now with a Gentoo install being half done, but I just simply don't have the time. In the meanwhile, I'm being drawn to the Mint forums when I have an issue, which is then quickly resolved. But... I regularly catch myself wanting to edit some gentoo config files, but they're not there. I can't emerge, because it's not there... I can't recompile firefox with some useflag support because, it's not there! Apt-get is nice but it's not what I'm used to... The commands are confusing. Mint's fast, I like the Software Manager which looks like a sci-fi version of Porthole with some nice categories and sub divisions, but it's not portage.

I don't WANT Mint, I want Gentoo. Eventually I'll make the time, but I also know that the time I spent typing in commands could be reduced by 4/5th if I just could click on it or select it from a list and it's something I think about every time, from 2004 and now again, when dropping Gentoo on a box (slowly...). I don't want to be like one of 'them'; those who are not Gentoo-born and blessed with the powers of Bash and Python, protected by the God of Enoch! But every time I do an install of Gentoo it does give me that feeling... I think that's also what the OP feels. That clumbsy CLI based installation where (for gods sake) you have to MANUALLY mount /proc, /sys and /dev (come on... really??!)... Why do I have to manually start cfdisk /dev/sda (something which is probably done in 100% of bare installations) when a script (in the form of gparted?) can do it for me? Are the partitions O.K.? Just press "Next".

So I started googling (hopeful that in the meantime somebody got smart with an installer) and this post was the most recent one about the GUI installer I could find. This I did after surfing to gentoo.org and literately found myself laughing out loud while clicking on the ' "Quick" Installation Guide' which printed is probably still 10 pages of techno babble. Don't get me wrong, I understand every bit of it, but I also KNOW it's possible with a click.

A GUI installation would make Gentoo more accessible to the bigger public. Most people don't want to write books, they want fisherprice. It would make things more easy, not only for non-gentoo folk but also for a returning "semi-veteran" like myself.

I think Gentoo is great but a nice GUI installer is surely one of it's downsides because it's not there. To be blunt, on that specific point it's nothing but a lack of vision. I know capable programmers are there, but nobody is pointing them in the GUI direction.

My two cents._________________Life isn't fair, but keep on going: make it fair.